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Opinion Contributor

Communication lessons from the election

Conventional wisdom said the overall context of the 2012 election was unfavorable to Obama. Polls showed large majorities of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, always a difficult environment for an incumbent. The economy was the biggest issue and the economy is creeping along with unemployment stubbornly high, higher than it was when the president took office. The problem is that exit polls showed more than half (53 percent) of Americans blame that economy not on Obama, but on his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

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That’s because Republicans never made the case that the financial crash was not the result of Bush — and by implication, Republican policies. It happened during the final months of Bush’s presidency, but had its roots in the crisis in the housing market. Both parties bear some of the blame, but it was Democrats who aggressively backed policies giving home loans to people who had little chance of repaying them.

Obama spent much of his first term blaming Bush for the “mess we inherited.” It wasn’t true, but with Bush out of office, Republicans never effectively challenged it. And now we’re stuck with the erroneous but lingering impression among more than half of our fellow Americans that it was our party’s policies that caused it.

3. Tone and message matter

Finally, the Republican Party has to set a tone that is more respectful, positive and inclusive. The immigration rhetoric that came out of the Republican primary seemed harsh, unwelcoming and offputting to many minority voters. Obama increased his share of the Hispanic vote and won it 69 percent to 29 percent (per The New York Times exit poll); likewise he built a huge margin among Asian voters, 74-25, almost doubling the margin of his support compared to 2008. Both of those constituencies are hardworking, upwardly mobile, family-oriented, and should be open to Republican appeals if we don’t make them feel unwelcome.

And if another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue. The college-age daughters of many of my friends voted for Obama because they were completely turned off by Neanderthal comments like the suggestion of “legitimate rape.”

We have to explain our conservative philosophy in a forward-looking way that appeals to the diverse constituencies that make up our country. And we need to make a special effort to listen to and better understand what resonates with younger voters.

I hope my fellow Republicans don’t take the wrong lessons from this campaign. Romney did not lose because he was not conservative enough. He lost because of communications mistakes that our party must correct if we are to earn the country’s confidence and elect a Republican president next time.

Karen Hughes is Worldwide vice chair of Burson-Marsteller. She previously served as counselor to the president in the administration of President George W. Bush and was undersecretary of State for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy.

One of the myths of this election the GOP/right wing/Hannity/ Hannity clonesare already trying to push is The Democrats FORCED the American public to accept their definition of Romney and he never got to define himself .... this a blatant lie ... Romney is the one who most powerfully defined himself in one speech to donors . Romney got caught with his infamous 47% comment and the rest is HISTORY...

More American voters liked President Obama and his vision than liked Romney and his vision . simple and clean ...

Ma'am, with all due respect (and I have long respected and enjoyed your critiques and TV interviews), one of the main problems of the Republican Party can be illustrated by how you wrote your article.

You wrote: " The immigration rhetoric that came out of the Republican primary seemed harsh, unwelcoming and offputting to many minority voters."

This is an excellent example of the change you personally need to go through as well as the Republican Party. The immigration rhetoric was not only unwelcoming and offputting to many minority voters, but also unwelcoming and offputting to many white voters. The Republican Party needs to stop believing that if you are white, we all think alike.

I'm white and I see insensitivity in so many forms coming from the Republican Party, your article being one of them.

And you write that you'd like to rip the tongue out of anyone who discusses rape in anything other than a horrific way. Ms. Hughes, if you seriously think that the comments of Mourdock and Akin alone is what turned off your college-age daughters of friends who voted for Obama, you are sadly mistaken. Mourdock's and Akin's comments are what flows naturally from a party platform that calls for making abortion illegal including in instances of rape, incest and health of the mother. What you want to do is silence what they say, but not silence the actions that would result from them being elected. You write nothing about how these men and others who hold these beliefs do not deserve to be included in a Republican party of the 21st Century. Tone and message and communication mistakes are not problems of the Republican party, the actions of the Republican party are the real problem.

What Republicans can't quite get is it isn't JUST the rape comments it's the whole idea of taking away our abortion rights, we want safe, legal abortion to be an option like it is in any first world country. All the "personhood" stuff that these anti-choice zealots amounts to the tea-liban version sharia law.

Ms. Hughes, stop spinning long enough to consider - just consider - that it's the GOP record - not a failure to, ahem,'communicate' (lie/misdirect/spin) in this particular cycle - that has driven the professional class and the educated from your folds. We don't forget as easily as you'd like - especially as we are saddled with GOP debt and the economic hangover from your reckless binge. We're not as gullible as your base.

The record of the last GOP administration indicates that your party sucks at governance, financial stewardship, national security, & foreign policy.

Why should the American people trust a party with our governing institutions which apparently doesn't believe in governance? That is still running on a platform of debasing government - then trashes our governing institutions once in power?

Consider the backgrounds of the last two standard-bearers - one, a war profiteer, the other a scion of an oil industry family with daddy issues. Now the background of your latest standard bearer - vulture capitalist, job offshorer, and tax avoidance specialist. No improvement there. Perhaps the GOP should be recruiting from more scrupulous ranks?

Consider a party whose apologists STILL seek to offshore blame for the ineptitude & recklessness that led to a near-depression. The party of personal responsibility, no less. It was W himself, not the Democrats, as you baselessly assert, that was the big poppa of the mortgage crisis, with his '04 push for an 'Ownership Society'. Compassionate conservatism indeed.

Consider a party that to this day takes no responsibility for the biggest postwar failure of national security: the attacks of September 11, 2001. W/Cheney were warned - they dismissed the intel and scheduled vacations. No one from your party has ever apologized to the American people for their lack of diligence.

Consider leadership that gulled us into invading a sovereign country, against the will of the community of nations- then ineptly prosecuted the ensuing war, squandering billions in treasure and way too much blood on both sides. Another hangover.

Consider a 21st Century torture regime Such a proud legacy.

I will leave it to you to ponder how your party drives away demonized minorities, women and youth. These data points are fairly obvious, and you seem capable enough handling them.

But as a boomer White male Obama supporter whose Republican father, a business owner, was driven away from the GOP by what he called your ex-bosses' "complete failure of management", I thought I'd straighten out the rest for you.

Before all these communicative mistakes ever became obvious is the basic flaw which was the sinkhole that destroyed Romoney' s identity.

Romoney never conveyed a single trustful portrait of himself.

As King of Etch-A-Sketch, he denied his campaign message each week. As a result of denying his own identity, no one knew who Romoney the person was.

Voters were introduced to a new Romoney each month since the RepubliCON Primary commenced. Which of the 14 Romoney portraits was to be believed? None ! Romoney, alone, voided his identity as a sincere, trustworthy man.

Romoney's basis mistake was that he was not true or truthful to himself. Therefore, he became the RepubliCon Joke with the nicknames of Flip Flop, Liar, Two-Faced, Deceiver, Fraud, King of Etch-A-Sketch, Bi-Polar, Demented, Schizophrenic, Pretender, & Romnesia.

Hopefully now that he has been rejected, he'll have time to renew his personal integrity.

I think Romney lost because the "independent expenditure" nut cases allegedly on his defined him -- at least in Ohio. The ads they aired -- incessantly -- were mean-spirited, inaccurate, and overwrought. Mitt didn't help himself with the claims about Jeep, either.

Look, from my standpoint, the most effective Republican ads run in Ohio were from the Republican National Committee. One told people Obama had tried and failed and it was okay to replace him. I worked on the Obama campaign and I found that one to be compelling. Incorrect, in my opinion, but compelling.

But there were so many other ads that, in effect, called Obama the anti-Christ and a commie-nazi-unAmerican-socialist that they negated the effective ads. And most of them were commissioned by groups like Crossroads GPS.

The "indy expenditure" guys shot themselves in the foot, and still don't seem to get it despite a glowing hole in the vicinity of their metatarsals.

Its' predictable that Ms. Hughes, being employed by the Burson-Marsteller public relations firm, would blame Romney's loss on poor "communications," as if more artfully dressing up Republicans' miserable candidate and policies in pretty words and images would succeed in fooling the American people. Clear-seeing public relations professionals know that candidates, companies, organizations earn their lasting image from what they are, what they do, and how they act, not from any different reality they spin. Good communications may well enhance an image by burnishing positives, or correct negatives that are not true in fact, but "communications" cannot persuade Americans what they see with their own eyes is not real.

Ms. Hughes claims "Romney did not lose because he was not conservative enough." No, I'd say Romney and Republicans lost because in the eyes of Americans they are far too radical, intent on upending the working framework and covenants we have made together as a nation over the last 236 years. A majority of Americans looked at the far-right's wrecking ball intents and said "hell, no, we like our country the way we've built it."

The reality is that no matter how a candidate defines himself, I am more interested in the message and the Republican message does not hold any appeal for me. Like the daughters of your friends, I was appalled by the stance of Republican men on the subject of rape and on the inability of Republican women to speak up and speak out. There is more than just a communications failure in the GOP there is disconnect as it relates to relevance in the lives of the majority of Americans under the age of 50.

You just can't please everybody, even if you change your opinion every time that you appear in public. That only makes you look pathetic.

Having all that money from the Super Pacs only made Romney feel obligated to act as an extremist. At the same time that he looked ridiculous by giving Donald Trump, the Koch Brothers and Adelson all the attention that he did.

First an extremist, then a moderate, etc. What the heck?

The Republican Party is broken. They need to get rid of the Tea Party, and go back to basics. Get rid of the idiots, such as SarahPalin, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Michelle Bachman. Get some intelligent people there that believe in SCIENCE, and is not interested in RAPE, as a topic of conversation, but defines rape for what is is: A CRIME.

No one I know, conservative, liberal or otherwise had any trouble getting the GOP's message. The message from the GOP was made all the more clear by the GOP's actions across the country in both local and Federal activity.

Mourdock and Akin's rape problem isn't why the GOP so horribly, horribly lost among women voters. The fact that once swept into office, State GOP politicians attacked their right to a safe and legal medical procedure is a perfect example. The GOP's constant attack on the Healthcare Act is another prime example of actions speaking as loud or louder than any message or messaging spin the GOP could muster. People want more affordable healthcare, preferably one that isn't tied to employment. No one likes to be held hostage to their job simply because they have a sick child or spouse.

Why is there no mention of Newt Gingrich's attacks against Romney during the primaries? Attacks paid for by the one and only SuperPac Man, Adelson. Talk about defining someone. These ads did not help. Gov. Romney. They did assist the Democrats, however. Thank you Karl Rove et al.

As an african american woman who is an independent, I find your comments and many other GOP representatives post election insulting. Everyone is now describing hispanics and asians as the only minorities who would consider voting for the GOP. You stated those constituencies are hardworking, upwardly mobile, family-oriented, and should be open to Republican appeals if we don’t make them feel unwelcome. Well I would say so would African American voters. In dismissal of African Americans, you are again being unknowingly racist and tone deaf in your thinking. I find it disheartening because I have voted republican on occasion and know I am, along with most friends and family members, hardworking, upwardly mobile and family oriented. Most african americans do not vote republican because we are not respected, treated racially insensitive, and not treated as though we are truly welcomed . Even after this recent election loss the high number of Republicans who are disregarding us as a racial group the GOP should attempt to bring into your party is again racially insulting. Your party should work on bringing "all americans" into your party based fair minded policies.

As an african american woman who is an independent, I find your comments and many other GOP representatives post election insulting. Everyone is now describing hispanics and asians as the only minorities who would consider voting for the GOP. You stated those constituencies are hardworking, upwardly mobile, family-oriented, and should be open to Republican appeals if we don’t make them feel unwelcome. Well I would say so would African American voters. In dismissal of African Americans, you are again being unknowingly racist and tone deaf in your thinking. I find it disheartening because I have voted republican on occasion and know I am, along with most friends and family members, hardworking, upwardly mobile and family oriented. Most african americans do not vote republican because we are not respected, treated racially insensitive, and not treated as though we are truly welcomed . Even after this recent election loss the high number of Republicans who are disregarding us as a racial group the GOP should attempt to bring into your party is again racially insulting. Your party should work on bringing "all americans" into your party based fair minded policies.

Also, please be aware many blacks would not have voted for OBAMA this term if it had not been for how racially disrespectful the GOP had been to Mr OBAMA and his wife. You must realize that when the GOP was so over the top in how they talked about OBAMA that African Americans felt insensed and took it personally. If you would say the things you did about him and his wife than you must feel this way about me as an african american as well. No matter how you felt about his policy, he should have been afforded the respect of the office of president. Folks like John Sununu and many others went too far. You can not repeatedly racially insult an African American president and then surprised that they did not vote for your party this election. Always remember, all inorities have voted for someone other than their race since the office of the presidency began. If minorities can accept and respect whites in the office of president for so many years then surely whites can tolerate another race as president now and in the future.